note 1 – The Transatlantic Business Dialogue is one of the major world lobbies, a non-democratic organization seeking « to boost transatlantic trade and investment opportunities through the removal of barriers — including costly inefficiencies caused by excessive regulation, duplication and differences in the EU and U.S. regulatory systems and procedures… The TABD entirely supports the rules and principles of the World Trade Organization » (TABD, April 2000). According to Jérôme Monod, copresident of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue (1999), governments accept almost 50% of the proposals made by the TABD.

note 2 – For international exchanges only two clearing houses exist. One is called Euroclear (Brussels), and the other CEDEL (Luxembourg). Since 1999, CEDEL has changed names and is called Clearstream. According to Conor Leason, the communications officer of Euroclear, an average of approximately 60, 70 or 80,000 transactions are processed by the company every day, for a total daily value of 180 billion euros.

note 3 – The right to vote in the IMF is proportional to the economic might of the participating countries. The United States therefore has the majority. To the contrary, all the African countries have only 3% of the votes between them, the equivalent of Belgium. If a country does not meet IMF criteria, not only does the organization refuse any loans, but no other lending organization (World Bank or private banks) will trust the country and therefore none will loan money. The IMF calls its policies « structural adjustment » or « stabilization. »